How come none of these random go players has yet seen fit to do anything about joining the AGA or attending a tournament? If they are going to get the benefit, they surely must do something of their own. All the talk that I see is that the AGA must change the rules, open up the system to the poor excluded outsider, when the door is not shut, locked and bolted, but is, in fact wide open for them to walk through, if they want to.

Best wishes.

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No aji, keshi, kifu or kikashi has been harmed in the compiling of this post.
http://www.gogod.co.uk

Read back, I'm sure you'll find comments about why they haven't joined the AGA so far... and see my last 3 arguments, which I have repeated in hopes that you would respond to at least one. I'm not your straw man, I suggested that they do something, look real hard and see if you can find what that was. I'm getting tired of this constant harping about how "They need to do something", when NOWHERE will you find me arguing that they shouldn't. I'm arguing that it makes no sense to have them do "THIS THING"

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

Well, tough! There are a number of simple steps that any Go player can do to represent his/her national organisation. One is to become and remain a member of that organisation. There appears to be a theme running through some of the arguments that one single national organisation is a bad thing and that creative anarchy would produce much better or stronger players to represent the nation. It doesn't work. I now consider at least two people contributing to this thread as trolls, and I am not going to respond to them again.

Best wishes.

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No aji, keshi, kifu or kikashi has been harmed in the compiling of this post.
http://www.gogod.co.uk

You mean the people that hold a different viewpoint than your own, right?



Yes, that's the way it is now. But the question is, "Why?". There's no reason to make it so difficult.

If you go back to my example, if a random go player is going to pay for his own gas, and the AGA doesn't have to go out of its way to give him a ride, there's no harm in doing so - unless you have something against the random go player.

I do not think that letting others ride in the car that AGA has available to him is certainly not a form of "anarchy". If anything, it will just make the AGA seem like a nicer organization.

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be immersed

the cost of the car does not come only from gas gas. The owner of the car pays for service, insurance, byus new tires some times etc.

Assuming a player lives in one of the two coasts, or near Chicago, Houston or Denver, it is not difficult to meet the now defunct requirement.

Certainly, that leaves some strong players out, and maybe the rule is wrong because there is not enough tournament activity, nationwide, to make complying with this rule easy for everyone. And maybe we need better ways to encourage tournaments so we can get to this point.

But lets be clear here. The AGA was asking a go player to pay 30 dollars a year, and play go two or three times a year.

In the abstract - that is "so difficult"?

Bear in mind, the abstract person who feels this is so difficult is perfectly willing to pack for a trip, miss some work, make sure his passport is uptodate, and fly all the way around the world...to play some go.

In comparison, which is more difficult?

To be pedantic, Houston seems to only rarely host tournaments nowadays. There was one in the last year, but I think they're otherwise rare. Austin is the place that has sufficient tournaments for AGA ratings. This statement has no rhetorical intent nad does not disprove what you said, I am just trying to correct what seems to be outdated information.

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

Thanks for the update. And I am sure I am missing some other pockets of go activity.

I have no problem with folks arguing that the requirement is a bad idea, and that it does not further any real AGA goals, or does not actually effect behavior positively, or might effect behavior negatively.

I just do not think, in the abstract, for most of the players in question, it is particularly difficult to meet. Again, that does not make it a good idea, I am just saying it is not difficult.

This confuses me. Are you saying the only way that the AGA can represent a player is by allowing that player unconditional access to anything the AGA does? That seems to be a peculiar way of understanding representation.

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Occupy Babel!

There is no such cost in this scenario. If the AGA is more open to allowing members to participate in international tournaments, it costs them nothing if we invoke an additional cost to those that don't meet whatever requirements.

Basically, the "random go player" is paying for his way, and it costs the AGA nothing at all.

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be immersed

Even if the AGA requirements are not difficult, there is no reason to have them. Picking up a "random go player" along the way brings benefit at no cost - unless you have some kind of anger toward the "random go player".

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be immersed

Referring to the tennis example given earlier, it should not be possible to represent the USA without going through a reasonable qualification process. It should not be that winning one tournament allows you to represent the USA, unless playing in that tournament in itself requires a qualification process.

Some kind of points system that rewards sustained participation (and performance) over a period of time is the norm in many other sports (as the tennis example illustrates) in the USA, and is the norm for Go in most other countries, as far as I know.

The AGA does various go activities. This is great.

If the purpose of the AGA is to represent all go players in America, as you say, we know that there are some go players in America that are not a part of the AGA.

So we have a dilemma. We want to represent these players, but they do not show interest in being a part of the AGA. Or maybe it's more laxed. Maybe these are AGA members, but they don't meet some other requirement for going to the tournament. In any case, if we want to find a "representative go player of America", there's the issue of those that aren't involved with the AGA to consider.

Since these players are separate from the AGA, there are a few ways that I can think of to bring us together:

1.) These players can come to the AGA's terms, doing whatever the AGA says to play in an international tournament.

2.) The AGA can give the players a chance to participate in a tournament, without enforcing AGA regulations on them.

3.) They can meet somewhere in the middle.

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We cannot control what "random go players" do, but we CAN control what the AGA does - it's a small organization. If the goal for an international tournament is to get representatives from the USA, then it would be ideal if the AGA included any go player from the USA.

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This is the part that really makes me see this perspective: costs and benefits. If we make those that haven't met AGA requirements pay their way for participating in an international tournament, there is *no cost* to the AGA for allowing these players to participate. However, there *is* a benefit.

Let's say that the strongest amateur in the world was a USA citizen. As such, if he participates in an international tournament, he will probably win. Let's also say that he has no interest in the AGA.

If we allow him to play in the qualifier, and make him pay for airfare costs, etc. of participating in an international tournament, it costs the AGA nothing at all. But if he wins the tournament, it brings a lot of publicity for go in the USA. It's a win-win situation.

If we don't allow him to play, we turn him off to the AGA and lose that publicity. We are not spreading go in the USA. We are hiding it.

Bottom line: People that want to be involved with the AGA will be involved with the AGA. People that don't want to won't. We shouldn't stifle go activity in the USA because we don't like people that aren't involved in the AGA. If it's an AGA tournament, then I can see these regulations being in place. But an international tournament is an opportunity to get go more popular in the USA - we don't have to funnel it through AGA regulations.

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be immersed

Then have the qualifier over a longer period of time.

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be immersed

in effect, we do (or did). consider the 10 rated games in the previous 12 months to be part of the qualifier.

This is Lisa Scott.

In my research/travel so far, it seems that in most of the country there is actually more difficulty finding tournaments than people think. Even in Colorado and Chicago, which both have unquestionably strong and vibrant communities, it can be hard to find 3 tournaments per year. There are generally 3-4 tournaments in Colorado, but often times someone may have a conflict with one or two off these tournaments, making it hard for them to reach the prior number of required games.

Additionally, many of us can find great rated games at a normal club meeting, assuming we live in a vibrant go area, but it can be hard for strong players to find reasonable games. Theoretically, an 8d could play 6-9 stone handicap games against the 2-4 players who are this strength in most areas, and these games could be reported as rated games. In many areas, however, there are a not a lot of dan, and certainly not a lot of high dan, players to compete against for those strong enough to participate in tournaments in order to represent the US internationally.

From what I hear, the tournament scene in Houston has diminished considerably in recent years, as tends to happen when it has been a long time since a Congress was in an area.

I think that we need more tournaments, and this was one of the things that I urged when visiting clubs. It does, however, take time and resources to build a community and to train volunteers so that tournaments are a worthwhile pursuit. In many areas, this process has been started, but it will take time to come to fruition. This was a major part of my consideration in determining my position on this issue. I certainly want to encourage face-to-face and tournament participation, but I think that this is best accomplished using a grass roots approach.

I would much rather see an official qualifier specifically for the given international event, with no other strings attached. If the goal is to promote go in the USA, then we don't have to push everything through an AGA funnel. Finding strong representatives to play go for the USA should be reward enough IMO



Agreed.

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be immersed

Welcome to the forum, Lisa.

Regarding rated games at clubs-- At the beginning of the year I offered to submit them for my club if people wanted to play them. No one has taken me up on it. People seem to just prefer to play rated games at tournaments vs people they don't play often.

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This thread sounds like a political debate, and it's going nowhere. One way to make sure it is a productive conversation: Are you willing to change your mind if it can be shown that you're wrong? (The answer "but I'm not wrong" is equivalent to "no".) We all want the AGA to be a better organization. We do not all agree on what will make it better. Our task is to decide what, in fact, will actually make it better. If a 10-game/12 month membership rule improves the AGA, I want to believe that a 10-game/12 month membership rule improves the AGA. If a 10-game/12 month membership rule harms the AGA, I want to believe that a 10-game/12 month membership rule harms the AGA. If we cannot say those two sentences and mean them, then we are just fighting and not having a productive argument. Our goal is to discover the truth, not argue for the truth we think we know.

Currently, I believe there are better ways of accomplishing that goal (participation) than those two rules. I will change my mind upon evidence or a sufficiently good argument showing I'm wrong.

If we cannot collectively agree on the best way of proceeding (and perhaps even if we can) then we need to find ways to try multiple things to compare how well they work.

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

I'm not really sure about the distinction you're making. Of course, the reason we are having discussion in general is to establish a good direction to move forward with.

I believe that the appropriate direction to take is to relax the requirements for participating in international tournaments, and I am arguing for that cause. Others have a different viewpoint, and are arguing for that cause.

The purpose of the discussion in general is, of course, to bring about greater insight toward the correct direction to take. I don't think that anyone doesn't have this goal in mind.

The goal is to discover truth, but to get there, we are discussing our viewpoints. What's wrong with that?

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be immersed

Agreed, but my perception is that people (not saying who) are not actually listening and evaluating each other's statements.


Nothing, and it's possible I'm the one misreading things.

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com